While men have higher participation rates in retirement plans overall, when controlled for work status, women consistently have higher participation rates, the Employee Benefit Research Institute announced Tuesday.

Women who work full-time all year have a participation rate of 55.5% compared with 53.8% of men who work full-time all year, EBRI found in an Issue Brief originally released in October. The participation rate for male and female workers is 54.5%.

EBRI used data from the U.S. Census Bureau's March 2011 Current Population Survey to find that "female workers' lower probability of retirement plan participation in the aggregate is a result of their overall lower earnings and lower rates of participation in the full-time work force, in comparison with men."